My coffee journey
The first coffees I can recall was during our Pyrenees hiking holiday with the family, when I was 15 years old or so. My dad used to make coffee every morning by boiling a pan of water and adding ground coffee to it. He let it steep for a moment whilst the grounds would fall down, after a few minutes he would add droplets of cold water so the cold water would drag the floating particles towards the bottom of the pan. Then he would gently pour out a few cups making sure the muck would stay in the pan. Simple black coffee.
As you can imagine, the French Pyrenees in summer can be hot. I guess I figured I should drink enough, so next to some water I also started drinking coffee in the morning. I liked coffee in its own way and it sticked. Years later I still prefer black coffee over a milked one, without any sugar.
During my studies in Delft, coffee became more of a thing for me. Buying coffee in the morning before the lecture started or during the day whilst working on the team projects. I got some old and (mis)used percolators from my sister, that got left behind by former tenants. I cleaned these and used one of them for a while, until I forgot that I left it on the stove and it overcooked. I could not fix the burnt smell and taste, so ended up tossing it. I can’t quite recall but I think my first bought percolator was a 6 cup Bialetti Moka Express Sound that my dad got for me in Rotterdam. A great unit and I enjoyed using it, the sound part made it a fun experience. After a while I got a smaller stainless Bialetti Kitty. This meant I could brew just one cup for myself, instead of overdosing on the “6 cup”.
The next upgrade was a hand grinder. I went to a local coffee shop in Delft and choose a nice wooden black one. Even though it looked nicely made from the outside, the burr and handle mechanism was absolute crap. I’ve used this for a while and then just stopped using it, as it was such a shitty experience grinding coffee beans. Before the last move I took it apart to see if it was worth while upgrading to ball bearings, making a proper adjuster and fixing the handle. It was not worth it.
Buying better quality ground coffee was becoming a thing for me, and with that an adjustment in sytle. I got a foldable filter from Ortlieb mainly for holidays. This was the main go to for quite a while as it could make nice coffee and was reasonably fast compared to the percolators. First I used the forks to balance on a pan, later I found some wooden sticks that made it into the kit. I guess it also reminded me of older times, when my dad made coffee in the pan.
Juli 2021. Before the start of an Alpine course I was helping to guide as an Instructor, I was on a camping in Austria. Sitting in the sun, days before the course started, I was making myself a coffee with the foldable filter unit. There one of the group members shared my apparent enthusiasm for a good cup of coffee and he started talking about an Aeropress and how awesome they are. So yes, after the holiday I got myself one, the Aeropress Go. Peeking into the rabbit hole one could say.